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Rob...thanks for the in depth follow up! Great to have some real data to work with. Helps inform some decision making regarding a new purchase. For what it's worth, I downloaded your file and rendered it directly in the design layer to see how my aging machine stacked up:
Machine: 27" 2012 iMac 3.4 GHz Intel Core i7/24 GB RAM
VW2019 on macOS Sierra
Render time: 19:07 (about 10 min were geometry and indirect lighting)
Multi core benchmarks put the mini at around twice as fast as my machine above which is just about what the render times indicate.

Wow...that is impressive!
How about general navigation without the eGPU?
Unfortunately, as much as it helps, an eGPU is not in my budget at this point. Trying to figure how a mini functions in general without one.
Thx

I'm curious about this too. If you're talking VW final renders (non OpenGL) then the 19 min down to 10 min makes perfect sense. But I'm confused on why an eGPU would further help reduce rendering time. Thought the eGPU was mainly helping screen redraws and openGL renders? Totally confused here.
Rob...have you played around with the mini without the eGPU enabled? How does that feel in general navigation, rotating wireframes and openGL renders?

I've been following this thread on eGPU testing with the mini closely but am primarily wondering about the i7 version with benchmarks shown below (linked from the other thread) without the addition of an eGPU.
My current machine is a late 2012 27" iMac 3.4 GHz i7 with 24GB RAM & GeForce GTX 680MX 2048 MB graphics card. I'd love to upgrade but one of the main reasons would be to get a larger screen so another 27" iMac doesn't really appeal to me. Budget is a factor too. No Mac Pro or fully decked out MacBook Pro in my future at this point.
My current iMac gives me the following Cinebench scores vs the new mini:
GPU: 67 FPS vs 46.68 FPS for Mini
CPU single: 139 vs 104 for Mini
CPU multi: 662 vs 1219 for Mini
So what does this mean in the real world? Would a new mini feel like a step backwards or does VW 2019 take advantage of the multi core processor enough that it would offset the other lower scores.
I understand from some of Jim's previous posts that the CPU multi score means my rendering times would essentially be cut in half. And on the other end the OpenGL screen redraws and generally moving an openGL rendering around the screen would take a 25% hit or so. But what about just moving around and drawing in 2D and 3D or viewing wireframe models, or screen redraws for hidden line? How are those tasks spread across the CPU vs GPU?
I would hate to buy a new mini only to feel like I had stepped backward.
Any input welcome...especially from anyone that has made the leapt to a new mini.

I needed the perf to actually have thickness so I wound up modeling it in 3D. Don't recall if I cut circles out of 2d rectangles then extruded or extruded first then did solid subtraction. This certainly took a huge toll on rendering times but did give me the result I was looking for with the edges of the holes having surfaces that could be illuminated. It doesn't have a texture...just a white fill.
I did do a pass using just an alpha channel to create the holes but this doesn't generate side walls for the holes which is something I needed since some of my renderings needed to be closeups. The alpha channel method just creates two surfaces. There may be a trick I am unaware of. If so, would love to hear it.

Just wanted to loop back around on this. I wound up using a combination of glowing objects and a simple custom texture for the blue panel. I essentially modeled thin strip lights on the inside faces of the front and back extruded frame as well as in the reveal at the inside edge of the perimeter and around the floating panel within the structure. All of these received a white glow texture. I then did a simple light to dark blue gradient to amplify the glow effect of the lights within the perf panels. And yes, I did have to add a light turned off to override the default ambient lighting. I rendered with a custom render style.This is how it turned out in the end. And in case anybody wants to get a similar effect, I've included a screen grab of all of my render settings.

Here's a stab at that approach. The perf complexity certainly slows things down and when extracting the entire surface it gives a very even light to the blue panel as shown. I might be able to edit the nurbs surface such that it is not the full panel but is clipped away a few inches at the perimeter to give the desired falloff of the light on the blue panel.

Yeah I wind up faking things a lot in VW and I might have to go this route and make custom texture that fakes the effect. Would be great if it just worked as an area light should and I didn't have to jump through the hoops to achieve the desired look.

Thanks! I tried this approach but am still getting the blotchy mess that area and line lights always seem to create. Even at very high quality setting. I turned off the perf panel to show it more effectively. It's kind of hard to see but yours does look smoother.

Hello all,
I have a structure modeled and I need to light it internally. Wondering if there is a way to make an object with a glow texture emit light but render invisibly and not show up in the render. I know that when using an area light this is possible but the results of that approach create a completely splotchy light effect. Is there something I can do with my glow texture to achieve this? The attached image on the left shows the approximate glow effect I want but I don't want the object itself to show up. The image on right is without the glow and shows the interior space I am trying to light.
Any tricks I am missing here?